News of The Mortal

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More big news from The Mortal!

And before we start, we're going to go ahead and say that Blog-Tick is the only place where you'll hear it all in one place, because even the news from the official Japanese channels is scattered over about five different social media sites, each with slightly different, slightly-incomplete contents. So this is just proof of how much we love you: we trawled through all the various announcements in turn and collated ALL the relevant info right here for your viewing pleasure. If you heard anyone else say anything different than what's written here, they're suffering from a translation deficiency. This, my friends, is a collection of the official words (though Fish Tank told you never to trust fan blogs!)

First of all, The Mortal's official website has opened up with content and an official artist photo, so go check it out here:

http://the-mortal.com/

And for those of you looking for links to all The Mortal's social media accounts on one page, here it is:

InstaBook / FaceTweet / TwitGram

After the launch of an official InstaFace last week, The Mortal have been teasing us with a nonstop stream of arty black-and-white photos from inside the recording studio.  It's hot as the fires of Hell here in Tokyo right now, but inside the studio it's nice and cool, and that, my friends, is where our dear Mr. Sakurai is currently holed up, racing against the clock to get his album ready in time - because now he's got a deadline (as if mortality itself weren't deadline enough!)  The Mortal's release schedule has been announced!

First, on October 14th, the band will release a mini album entitled Spirit (yeah Acchan-chan we know you are a Bauhaus fan and we see what you did there...also you're a bit late to the party as Hamlet Machine already had that one covered in the 90's...but we'll forgive you this once!) The album will cost 1800 yen plus tax, and include two original songs and three covers of songs by "Western rock bands."

But all this information does is raise more questions than it answers - for one thing, will The Mortal cover This Mortal Coil with their mortal coils, I mean coiled guitar strings? Will the eponymous "Spirit" be on there? Will this Mortal "Spirit" be more spiritual than the "Spirit" of Hamlet Machine? (raise your hand if you know Hamlet Machine?) And hath this mortal spirit aspired the clouds which so untimely did scorn the earth? (Oh wait, that one was "Romeo and Juliet," not Hamlet...) Is there a battle of the bands waiting in the wings here? And will it be waiting in the wings, or will it be with YOU? And will it cut down the puppet strings?!?!? We can only wait and wonder.

Following Spirit, a full album will be released in (early?) November. The exact release date for the album has not been set yet, and the title is listed as "As Yet Untitled Album," but unless Sakurai plans to pull another "Mudai" on us, I think we can expect that to change in the near future.

Both records will be released from the label cutting edge, and the first-press edition of Spirit will come with a special first-press-only cardboard sleeve.

But wait, there's more!

Fans who purchase a copy of both the mini album and the full album will be eligible to enter a lottery for tickets to a special promotional event, to be held in the basement event space at Tower Records Shibuya on November 23rd. In addition, fans who purchase their copies of the albums through Tower Records will receive special promotional stickers and possibly other goodies, too.  If you'd like Cayce's help with purchasing from Tower, send us an email at themadaristocrat at gmail!

There's no word yet on what the event itself will involve, or whether Mr. Sakurai himself will be present, but to pique our curiosity futher, the other band members have now been announced, as follows:

Vocal - Sakurai Atsushi

Guitar - Jake Cloudchair (Guniw Tools)

Guitar - Murata Yukio (My Way My Love)

Bass - Miyo Ken (ex. M-AGE)

Drums - Akiyama Takahiro (downy)

If these names don't mean anything to you - Jake Cloudchair worked on Sakurai's previous solo project, both as a member of the live band for the Ai no Wakusei Explosion Concerts, and as the composer and producer for the song "Neko." However, he's best known for his work with Guniw Tools, a band who the Buck-Tick members have known for many years and collaborated with on several occasions (Guniw Tools vocalist and leader Full directed Buck-Tick's "Candy" PV, while Imai wrote the music to the song "Grazing," which appeared on Guniw Tool's penultimate album, Dazzle.) Currently, in addition to being involved with Guniw Tools' sporadic revival project, Jake also performs solo instrumental guitar shows under the name cloudchair, and participates in a variety of other projects, including promotional advertisements for high-tech guitar effects...giving imai's Evl Gtr a run for its money:

Murata Yukio was also involved in Sakurai's previous solo album, as his band My Way My Love wrote the music for the songs "Hallelujah" and "Explosion."  A veteran of the underground shoegaze/noise scene, Murata may not be famous on his own, but he's got a lot of goth cred under his belt. Here's an example of My Way My Love's work:

Meanwhile, Miyo Ken and Akiyama Takahiko have both worked extensively as support musicians for Kiyoharu and Morrie, who as we well know, are both good friends with Sakurai - clearly they got some good letters of recommendation.

In summary: these guys are pros. Whatever they come up with, it's sure to be good. As for who will write the music, according to the band bio (which Jake Cloudchair has already reposted to his blog), the band members are writing the music as an ensemble, with input from all five. Does this mean that Sakurai is writing some of the music this time, for more or less the first time in his career? Maybe so. We can only wait for more info.

And if you haven't gotten your tickets for the tour yet - there's still time!  In fact...Cayce actually has an extra ticket available for the opening show in Osaka on November 17th, and there's another Blog-Tick with a number of available tickets for Tokyo, as well. If you're interested, send us an email right away, as it's safe to assume that tickets from the first-round lottery will have the highest chance of being good seats.

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I will post further info on Blog-Tick as it is announced.